Use Forms of Explosives - Polymer Bonded

Polymer Bonded

Polymer-bonded explosives, also known as Plastic-bonded explosives or simply PBX, are a relatively solid and inflexible explosive form containing a powdered explosive material and a polymer (plastic) binder. These are usually carefully mixed, often with a very thin coating of the polymer onto the powder grains of the explosive material, and then hot pressed to form dense solid blocks of PBX material.

There are numerous PBX explosives, mostly based on RDX, HMX, or TATB explosive materials. An extensive but by no means complete list of PBX materials is in the main Polymer-bonded explosive article. The major naming systems for PBX use:

• LX-# (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed PBXes)
• PBX #### (Los Alamos National Laboratory developed PBXes)
• PBXN-# (United States Navy developed PBXes)

LX numbers range from 1 to 17. PBX system numbers start around 9000 and use numerous scattered numbers between there and 9700.

Some commonly known PBXes are:

• LX-17
• PBX-9502
• PBX-9404
• LX-11
• LX-14

PBXes are notable for their use in modern Nuclear weapons. Modern US and British nuclear warheads nearly all use insensitive PBX types using only TATB explosive, to increase safety in case of accidents.